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Galrantior
General information Modern Galrantior (MG; galrantior ëg rekli) is the lingua franca of the Klimsan region on the Uxtratana Landmass in Rahtouri. It is essentially an officialized creole of Latter-Hegemony Drulaktior (LHD) and Republic Nirasoi that formed gradually over time as the Drulaktor Galrants continued to make contact with the Niras Galrants. Both of the languages that make up Modern Galrantior are distinctly different, yet both can trace their roots back to the oldest known Galrant language, Ancient Klimsan. This means that Modern Galrantior is a rejoining of two very different tongues that were once one in the same. Modern Galrantior is the language used for administration and education in the Klimsan region. Many residents of Klimsan either state MG as their native tongue or state it as their second language. Notably, this excludes the Shaneik Diaspora of Alrorei; the residents of which continue to speak Galreic, itself a creole of LHD and Standard Shaneic. MG is an agglutinative language, combining words to form many single words expressing an idea. MG is also a tonal language, with words and phrases being altered by using a specific tone. Phonology Consonants Vowels Alphabet The Modern Galrantior alphabet is rather complex, containing well over 120 glyphs to represent various fusions of consonants and vowels as well as the consonants and vowels themselves and inflections on the vowels. The standard procedure for writing in Modern Galrantior is to use glyphs representing the appropriate fusion when a consonant-vowel cluster comes up, otherwise it is customary to just use the "simple" glyphs (essentially the glyphs that represent one speech sound). When transcribed to Latin letters, Galrantior makes use of the following: a å d e ø f g h i æ j k l m n o p r s ʃ t þ u v x y z ʒ Plus diaereses, acutes, graves, carons, macrons, circumflexes, and underlines for the vowels depending on tone. Phonotactics Grammar Word Order The subject and verb along with any conjugations and verb tenses and/or declensions are combined and placed at the beginning of the sentence or clause (arranged like verbconjugation or noundeclensiontense), while the object is usually placed elsewhere in the sentence depending on the form being spoken, with any applicable prepositions being applied immediately before the object. Galrantior thus doesn't really abide by the standard orders of subject, verb, and object. Pronoun Conjugations Pronouns are notable in that most are whittled down to a single speech sound when indicating them in the aforementioned subject-verb combination. For example, to say "I walk." you'd say "Norstå.", with /å/ being the self-referential pronoun. The word for "I/me/myself" in Galrantior is traditionally /tʃe/ ("che") but due to the usage of combining the verb to the pronoun conjugation it, along with other pronouns, is rarely spoken as the subject. /tʃe/ is also used as a word part for the Galrantior word for "please" (/ítʃe/, roughly "for me"). The following lists the various pronoun conjugations in Galrantior, combining the pronoun with the verb "fly" ("guþel") and assuming a present tense: *'I' fly. --> Guþel'å'. (/å/ is pronounced like a heavy /a/; think of the "oa" in "coal" for a good equivalent) *'You' fly. --> Guþel'ø'. (/ø/ is pronounced just like in the IPA, hence why it was chosen to represent that sound; think of the "oo" in "good" or "foot" for a nice example) *'You (plural)' fly. --> Guþel'øren'. (essentially pluralizing /guþelø/ using the organic gender) *'You and I' fly. --> Guþel'ei'. (/ei/ is pronounced like how you'd pronounce /a/ when reciting the English alphabet: "-ay") *'We' fly. --> Guþel'æ'. (/æ/ is not pronounced like in the IPA, hence why it was never said that the Latinized transcriptions of Galrantior strictly abide by IPA; in essence, it is pronounced as a sharp /i/, best represented in the IPA as /ai/ or otherwise the /i/ in "otherwise") *'He/she' flies. --> Guþel'ül'. **Although the majority of verbs in Galrantior end with /l/ or some other consonant, some do not. In such a case, one would add /-kúl/, with a rising tone on the /u/ instead of the usual focal vowel tone. He/she sleeps. --> Gyata'kúl'. **"It" is treated a bit differently than "he" or "she" when it comes to conjugation. Instead of adding /-ül/, one adds /-na/. It flies. --> Guþel'na'. *'They' fly. --> Guþel'ren'. (basically, pluralize the verb according to the gender of "they"; see gender below) It should be noted that normal nouns are never changed when combined with a verb, so to say "The animal walks" you'd say "Norstgerülsu". Verb Tenses Galrantior has nine verb tenses and two irregular verb tenses. On top of past/present/future, there is also past reminiscent (should have/would have), present concurrent ("-ing"), future potential (should/would), request, permission, and command. One of the irregular tenses is "not"--it is treated as irregular because it can be applied to any argument logically. The other is a rough equivalent to "shall" but is treated as irregular because plain old future tense can cover that message--the "shall" tense was common a long time ago to show that you really meant what you were saying. Verb tense indicators come at the very end of the subject-verb conjoined word, after the noun or pronoun declension, making it the last part of said word. *'Past '- append "-te" to the end of the combined word. **I killed the animal. --> killed animal. --> Kill•I•(past) (directed)•animal. --> Giuel•å•te (á)•gerülsu. --> Giuelåte haa ágerülsu. *'Past reminiscent' - append "-tâj" (should have) or "-tûj" (would have) to the end of the combined word. *'Present' - no change is needed. *'Present' concurrent '- append "-se" to the end of the combined word. **It should be noted that present concurrent is only used when responding to a question. For example: "What is he doing?" "Going to the store." Otherwise, plain present is used. *'Future '- append "-ni" to the end of the combined word. *'Future potential '- append "-tâv" (should) or "-tûv" (would) to the end of the combined word. *'Request '- append "-klä" to the end of the combined word. *'Permission '- append "-kyö" to the end of the combined word. *'Command '- place the word "jun" before the verb. *'Not '''- append "-kim" to the end of the combined word including after any applicable tense. Examples: I am going to the bathroom. --> am going the bathroom. --> Go•I to•bathroom. --> Gêl•å á•gïtja. --> Gêlå ágïtja. Noun Declensions Nouns decline according to number (in the form of "some", "many", etc as well as pluralization), case (including possessive), and gender (as noted below). In the usual Galrantior way of combining the subject and verb into a single word, the noun's declension comes after the noun in the combination and before the tense, making it the third part to the combined word. Pronouns do not decline, however, with the sole exception of the Galrantior equivalent to "they" (and even then, the only accepted declensions is via gender and number e.g. pluralization). Tones As noted, Galrantior is a tonal language. It uses rising tone, falling tone, top tone, bottom tone, dipping tone, arching tone, and focal vowel. Although the Galrantior script form has its own ways to indicate each tone, the tones will be indicated through the Latinized transcriptions via the use of diacritics. Rising and Falling '''Rising tone and falling tone are usually directly linked together in that switching the two in a word when both could be applicable reverses the word's meaning, effectively giving the opposite meaning; however, this only applies when the difference between the opposites are measurable (i.e. the difference between big and small). The pronunciations are, as the name implies, rising and falling. Rising is indicated with an acute (á é í ó ú) while falling is indicated with a grave (à è ì ò ù). Rising and falling tone are also used when superlatives are involved, via the addition of either /é/ or /è/, for example, "vigla", meaning "good", becomes "great" when you add /é/ (vigla'é'), and becomes "less than good" (also an alternative for "bad" but "bad" also has its own word) when you add /è/ (vigla'è'). Examples of rising and falling: *Rising and falling are the difference between "to" and "from" in the directive sense. To indicate an action being directed at something, or an object traveling to or from another object or place, you add either /á/ (to) or /à/ (from) as a prefix to the noun being directed to or from. This is notably an exception to the "measurable difference" rule, remaining only because it is a relic from Middle Drulaktior. **I gave to him some food. --> Ikilåte xealhe áikül. *The difference between "big" and "small" is kr'á'''ne (big) and kr'à'ne (small). Top and Bottom '''Top tone' and bottom tone are also linked together, and like rising and falling, they indicate opposites when used side-by-side. What separates these tones from rising and falling is that the difference between the two opposites is not quite measurable (i.e. the difference between water and ice, which are treated as opposites in Galrantior). Top tone is pronounced at the highest volume the individual can utter, while bottom tone is at the lowest pitch the individual can manage. Top is indicated with macrons (ā ē ī ō ū) whereas bottom is indicated by underlining the vowels (a e i o u). Which opposite is given which tone is more or less arbitrary, but the perceived "worse" of the two or the "not in agreement with X" (when concerning philosophies) usually gets the bottom tone. Top and bottom are also used when describing the difference between two abstract nouns that are opposites, since technically the difference between two abstract nouns would be immeasurable. Also like rising and falling, top and bottom are used for superlatives as well, notably the "best" and "worst" forms of a superlative. The same letter is modified as either /ē/ or /e/. Using the same example of "vigla" (good), you can change it to mean "spectacular" by adding /ē/ (vigla'ē') or "not very good at all" by adding /e/ (vigla'e'). Examples of top and bottom: *As noted, water and ice are treated as opposites. The diacritic-free word "kgua" refers to water as the chemical, while kguā refers to water in its liquid form; kgua refers to ice. *Another usage of the two tones is when referring to a philosophy. For example, the philosophy of abiding by Scaladius's tenets is given the word "skalātur". Those philosophies that directly go against Scaladius's tenets are given the word "skalatur". **It should be noted to anyone who studies Galrantior: do not conflate /a/ and /å/, for they indicate completely different meanings (one is bottom tone, the other is the verb conjugation referring to oneself i.e. "I action"). The difference between the two is that /å/ is pronounced like a very thick /a/, sounding roughly like the "oa" in the word "coal"; bottom tone /a/ is just a very low-pitch long-/a/ sound. Arching and Dipping Arching tone and dipping tone are notably the only pair of the seven tones that are not exclusively linked, unlike rising/falling or top/bottom. There are a few cases when they are linked, but more often than not, their use side-by-side can produce two words with unrelated meanings. The few instances in which they are linked together is when speaking in "quick" form, when one wishes to indicate when something went from "bad to good to bad", or when something went "good to bad to good", although this is a system in the language that is rarely if ever used. It is a relic of Old Drulaktior in which soldiers would describe a battle they'd fought or an action they'd carried out, along with the use of the other tones listed here for similar reasons; and even then, it was rarely used. It's safe to say that arching and dipping usually don't have any direct connection whatsoever (most Galrantior teachers teach children to "always assume it isn't quick-form"). As could be expected, arching tone is indicated with circumflexes (â ê î ô û) while dipping tone is indicated with carons (ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ). Focal Vowel Focal vowel is the one "orphaned" tone of the seven tones in Galrantior, indicated with a diaeresis (ä ë ï ö ü). Since it has no tonal counterpart, it is instead used to indicate mood or form. It is pronounced by putting emphasis on the vowel that is outed as the focal vowel. Galrantior only allows one focal vowel for each word. Although this sounds like the speaker/writer is then free to apply focal vowels wherever they'd like, focal vowels are actually set-in-stone and never allowed on declensions or conjugations. For example, the word "sänʃea" (store) can only have the first /a/ be a focal vowel. Many words with focal vowels do not have any alternative word, such as "sänʃea"; sanʃea or sanʃëa or sanʃeä are not accepted, although this mostly affects writing since any native speaker can realize you mean "store" since the word has no alternative. The "no alternative" for many words was likely caused by the merging of LHD and Republic Nirasoi; the latter which had a fluid focal vowel system whilst the former lacked any such system, and many nouns were taken from LHD ("sänʃea" included). Gender The language gives gender to its nouns, but not based on sexual dimorphism; instead, the divide is based on the metaphysical state of the noun. Nouns are either organic (any organism, including people; objects made of organic materials are categorized as inorganic), inorganic (any object that is tangible but not organic, such as a metal bar), or abstract (any object that is not tangible by any means). The genders are applied in the form of determiners (equivalents to "the") and pluralization of the noun in question, with a small number of verbs also being slightly changed based on the noun's gender. *Organic: the = haa; pluralization nounren *Inorganic: the = lir; pluralization nounid *Abstract: the = kon; pluralization noundel The advantage of this gender system is that nouns are not set-in-stone as one gender; any gender can be freely applied to any noun. This allows for the speaker or writer to impart extra information with the mere change of gender. For example, the word for species, gerilg, can refer to an actual species or the concept of species in general. To refer to an actual species, one would say "haa gerilg" and pluralize as "gerilgren", since the actual species is organic; to refer to the concept of species, one would say "kon gerilg" and pluralize as "gerilgdel" since the concept of species and taxonomy in general is abstract. The pitfall to be avoided here is to not use the wrong gender lest you confuse others. Vocabulary Example text Gêløklä ásänʃea asxeal ítʃe? --> Can you please go to the food market for me? Kealå io norstren àkalisakr áfralagast. --> I saw them walking from Kalisakr to Fralagast. Etualikül køloʃæ gêl! --> This person needs to go to a hospital! Category:Languages